The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX God and the devil are the ideals of absolute good and evil. But man never conceives absolute evil, save as a false idea of good. Good only can be absolute; and evil is only relative to our ignorance, and to our errors. Every man, in order to be a God, first makes himself a devil; but as the law of solidarity is universal, the hierarchy exists in hell as it does in heaven. A wicked man will always find one more wicked than himself to do him harm; andwhen the evil is at its climax, it must cease, for it could only continue by the annihi- lation of being, which is impossible. Then the man-devils, at the end of their resources, fall once more under the empire of the god-men, and are saved by those whom one at first thought their victims ; but the man who strives to live a life of evil deeds, does homage to good by all the intelligence and energy that he develops in himself. For this reason the great initiator said in his figurative language: “I would that thou wert cold or hot; but because thou art lukewarm, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” The Great Master, in one of his parables, condemns only the idle man who buried his treasure from fear of losing it in the risky operations of that bank which we call life. To think nothing, to love nothing, to wish for nothing, to do nothing —that is the real sin. Nature only recognizes and rewards workers. The human will develops itself and increases itself by its own activity. In order to will truly, one must act. Action always dominates inertia and drags it at its chariot wheels, This is the secret of the influence of the alleged wicked over the alleged good. How many poltroons and cowards think themselves virtuous because they are afraid to be otherwise ! 206